


After The Shock, The Fall

by missroserose



Category: The Lost Boys (Movies)
Genre: Angst, Grief/Mourning, Loma Prieta Earthquake, Loss, Loss of Parent(s), M/M, Personal Growth, Reunions, Whump
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-16
Updated: 2020-06-16
Packaged: 2021-03-04 07:22:00
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,011
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24760003
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/missroserose/pseuds/missroserose
Summary: Two years after the Battle at Emerson House, a shattering earthquake reshapes Santa Carla, the Bay Area—and Michael's life.One year later, David comes back to examine the pieces.
Relationships: David/Michael Emerson (Lost Boys)
Comments: 16
Kudos: 93
Collections: LOST BOYS





	After The Shock, The Fall

**Author's Note:**

  * For [sirsparklepants](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sirsparklepants/gifts).



> This was based a prompt from [sirsparklepants](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sirsparklepants/pseuds/sirsparklepants), who donated to my Bike MS fundraiser last summer. Sorry it's taken so long to write, my friend; I hope some part of it resonates with you.
> 
> Special thanks to [Introvertia](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Introvertia/pseuds/Introvertia) for feedback, validation, and generally letting me blather at her.

The fog swirls around the hem of David’s coat as he lands, one newly-solid sole and one knee meeting the earth with a pleasantly resounding _thud_. He almost smiles for a moment at the sheer drama of it; he stands, takes a moment to test out his legs before he straightens and walks down the hillside towards the town.

_Oh, Santa Carla. Never change._

Of course, it’s too late for that, even here. The earthquake did a number on the town; now, a year out, half the remaining buildings are condemned, awaiting either appeal or the wrecking ball. But the boardwalk, some ways down the hill, still shines its bright lights into the deepening dark. Still sparkles its garish salesman’s smile, glitters with the with the promise of kitschy fun, cheap thrills, a quick tryst behind a cheerily-painted backdrop, a quick coshing in the dark spots between. 

Even with the _Murder Capital of the World_ sign gone, it’s still his town.

This street, closer to downtown, is harder hit. Most of the buildings still standing are marked with the red X; wraparound porches and Victorian architectural flourishes, once charmingly shabby, sag downward or have been removed entirely. Half of the structures are incomplete: two wallpapered sides and most of a fireplace, a pocket of private domesticity exposed. The loose bricks and rubble have been cleared away, but while the main downtown strip sprouts hopeful quake-proof frameworks like fungus after a rain, this street has not yet succumbed to the steady march of gentrification.

And yet, the changes are there. Not long ago, an abandoned street like this would have been an ideal meeting place for all sorts of characters. Gangs, immigrant or supernatural or both. Punks and runaways, squatting wherever they could find shelter. Even kids from the university, makeup pancaked on, out looking for a little weekend adventure. But despite the Saturday night, despite the promise of the crisp October air and the ever-moving fog and the wan light of the quarter-moon, the road is empty.

A little further, and he finds the mural, rising from the dark. Four half-finished figures painted on a half-collapsed building, larger than life, swirling upward from a morass of pearly whites and greys. Their hardened features twist into snarls, their amber eyes glare outward. The details are wrong, in places, but the likenesses are uncanny, and David feels a queasy sensation of duplication as he gazes on his double—is tempted to bare his own fangs in return.

It’s still easier than looking at the others.

Footsteps break the moment, and David lets himself melt silently back into the shadows across the street. The beam of a flashlight bobs around the corner, followed by a tall figure dressed in black sweats and a balaclava, in a way that’d be cartoonishly villainous if it weren’t so mundane.

David silently moves further back between two buildings as the figure’s head swivels to and fro, but the beam of the flashlight is no match for the fog and the gloom of the street. He watches as the figure sets up a lantern, unslings a pack onto the ground with a heavy _clank_. A gust of wind carries a burst of scent to him, desert-dry, dusty scrub and hot sun—and David is surprised at the surge of longing it stokes. Surely it couldn’t hurt to reach out, just a little, brush his thoughts against that warmth—

But no. He’s waited this long, and of course his prey has grown cannier in the intervening years. To open that door would be to risk exposure. No sense in that.

It’s a remarkably short time before the artist is working once more. For an hour, two, David watches paint stroked and splashed on the wall, the figures coming to life, clothing and hair given depth and reality—until, with an air of finality, the artist takes out a can of red spray paint. Splashes a legend across the bottom, moving the can slow, letting the letters drip bloody onto the ground.

_Good Times._

The can gives another _clank_ as it’s tossed into the pack. The figure steps back, takes a moment to survey the work.

“You can come out.”

If David weren’t already statue-still, he would have frozen at the words. Briefly, he replays the past few minutes, looking for any hint of self-betrayal, any fissures in his self-control, that might have given away his presence—but no. He hasn’t moved. Hasn’t breathed. Hasn’t reached out with anything more than the most passive of perceptions—

“I know you’re there,” the voice comes again. A moment of silence, gravid with expectation. “You might as well say hello.”

Something in that breathy tenor, familiar in his thoughts and yet made strange by time and distance, catches somewhere underneath David’s ribcage. Aches in the place where he once, long ago, felt the steady thrum of a heartbeat; a hook tugging at a stone. Another moment, and he decides; steps forward, lets the shadows slide from his form. “How did you know?

Lips pull back from teeth that gleam in the lantern-light. “Like I don’t dream about you every night.” A pause, and then—”How did you find me?”

David can feel the warmth stirring in his chest and gut, almost like his heart is rousing itself to meet the challenge. “Like I wouldn’t know where you were a thousand miles from here.”

A soft exhalation, a twitch of the lips—an acknowledgement of the _touché_. David feels warmth spreading through his limbs, has to resist the urge to bare his teeth in a smile of his own.

They stand together for a moment, silent and preternaturally still, both looking up at the wall. David lets his eyes slide along the painted faces that snarl back down at him. It’s easier to look at them, now. Dwayne, tall and imposing, silent but no less strong. Paul, the glee of shameless anarchy in his grin. Marko, teeth brandished, ready to wreak vengeance on the world that dismissed him.

Four faces, captured in paint on a wall. Forever young. Forever free.

Michael pulls off his balaclava, shaking out his dark hair. It’s shorter now, cut more closely to his head, but still curls around his face in a way that a previous era would have called “becoming”. His face has lost some of its baby fat, cheekbones more prominent, sensitive mouth now balanced by a stronger jawline, sprinkled with a day’s worth of stubble. 

But it’s his eyes that catch David’s gaze. They were always expressive, but there’s an intensity to them here that nearly burns. Gas-flame blue, startling in his dark face.

“You look older.” Not long ago, David would have said it with some smugness. Would have felt superior to his prey, bound to the inevitable march of time.

“You don’t.” Michael’s lips lift on one side, somewhere between a smirk and a snarl. He looks back up at the wall. “Do you miss them?”

Of course David misses them. They’re his brothers. Their presence, in his den, in his mind, was a constant—an annoying one, sometimes, but a reassurance nonetheless. A sense that everything was _right_. 

A sense he hasn’t had for a long time, now.

“Every day.” He turns to Michael. “Do you?”

That half-smile again. “Do you know why I painted them?”

David quirks an eyebrow, at the evasion as much as the response. But he lets it go. “Do tell.”

“I knew all of you for such a short time. And yet they were some of the most intense times of my life. I thought your faces were burned into my mind forever.” He shakes his head. “Now—”

“They grow a little fuzzier.” David’s voice cuts in, understanding. “Every day a little thinner, like old fabric. Until you wonder if you’re only remembering your memory of them. An echo of an echo.” From the corner of his eye, he sees Michael turn towards him, feels his surprise. He smiles, just a little, wry. “I’m older than I look, Michael.”

“How do you manage it?” A loaded question, but the emotion behind it is quiet. Well-worn territory. 

“I carry on.” David shrugs. “I find something else to focus on.”

Michael nods, slowly. “Like revenge.”

David merely looks at him, refusing to confirm or deny.

“Are you here to kill me?” Michael straightens, squares his shoulders.

“I haven’t decided.” It’s not precisely true. There’s only two ways this thing between them can end; the inertia of their shared past is too heavy for anything else. And David has no intention of not being the one left standing. 

Still...they have time. 

Michael nods once, seeming to accept that, to understand what’s being left unsaid. “Then why are you here?”

“Memories.” David realizes, as he says it, that it’s true. “I’ve missed this place.”

Michael nods, accepting this. “Sometimes I think all that’s left of it is memories.”

The words, spoken in front of the painting, resonate as plucked strings in a ghostly orchestra. That night, that wonderful and terrible night, where he gained his freedom from his maker, but at such terrible cost—the screams of his brothers as they died, the piercing pain of the horns slicing through his flesh, nearly as sharp as the betrayal—David bites the inside of his cheek, brings himself back to the present. It’s not the right moment to wallow. “What do you remember?”

For a moment, he wonders if he’ll get an answer. But then, “Walking together.” A beat. “Roaming the boardwalk and the dunes at night. You walked like you weren’t afraid of anything in the world.”

“ _We_ walked.” David puts the slightest emphasis on the pronoun. Remembers the warmth of his brothers around him, his pack. The safety in their numbers. The invincibility of their place in the hierarchy of their nighttime world. The weeks of slowly seducing their newest half-brother, the anticipation of fierce connection and joy of his eventual baptism in blood. “You walked with us, Michael. The world was afraid of us, and rightly so.”

To his surprise, Michael doesn’t take the bait. “What do _you_ remember?”

The warm feeling in David’s gut flickers to nothing, as he glances back up at the wall. Wonders at how much their faces have faded in his mind already, that they look almost strange now. Wonders at the face next to him, how much it’s changed. “I remember...innocence.” 

There’s a moment of emptiness between them, a silence not quite filled by the chirp of night bugs, by the wind susurrating in the long grasses, by the soft wisps of fog that curl around their feet. David lets it go on just long enough to be uncomfortable before turning to Michael. “Have you done others?”

“Yeah.” Michael’s not quite smiling, and David is surprised to realize he can’t interpret the expression. “I’ve had a lot of spare time, this past year.” Then, with a bluntness that startles the vampire: “Want me to show them to you?”

David considers. Things aren’t going to plan, or at least, not any of the several plans he’d set in place for tonight. By all means he should withdraw. Regroup. Get back on track. 

But then, revenge is an art. And sometimes art needs a little room to breathe. To become something different than what was planned.

“Show me.”

Michael picks up the lantern, begins to walk down the hill. After a moment, David follows.

\--

David recognizes the next building. Once upon a time it was a used bookstore, frequented by tourists, students, hippies, anarchists. He’d pocketed more than a few volumes himself, to read in the lair, long ago. Now the front bears the spray-painted red X. Unsafe. Condemned. Liable to collapse at any moment.

The back wall is a riot of color and life.

It’s an impressive scene—a gang of punks clustered smoking around a door, their faces animated. A couple of hippies sitting on the sidewalk playing guitar. Some goth kids in neo-Victorian getup, black lipstick and eyeliner prominent. A brown-skinned family in worn clothing, wending their way through the background, stairstep children in tow. And along the bottom, in neatly-stenciled blood-red letters: _People Are Strange_.

David finds he’s smiling. “It’s Santa Carla.”

“Was. Or will have been.” Michael shrugs. “The quake changed a lot. Housing was scarce for a while, so most of the transient crowd’s moved on. A bunch of rich investors bought up the lots downtown. The gangs are still around, but they’re leaner now. More driven.” 

“You’ve been keeping up on the underworld here?” David works to keep his tone neutral.

Michael laughs a little, in a way that makes David wonder if his surprise had shown through. “What, you thought I was going to go running back to my mother? Hide under the covers?”

David’s grateful for his long years of practice at keeping his face blank. “I thought you rejected that life. Emphatically.”

“My grandfather’s house was half-destroyed by a pack of vampires. The most dangerous of them disappeared when we went to retrieve his body. It’d have been irresponsible of me not to keep my ear to the ground.” He smiles, humorlessly. “You’re a little late coming back. Santa Carla’s not quite so disreputable anymore.”

“It will be, again.” David feels long practice smooth his voice with confidence so strong he almost feels it. “This place has always drawn the twilight crowd. Sooner or later they’ll be back.”

“Like you are?” Michael’s tone is curious. “What brings you back? Why now?”

David does smile then, showing teeth. “Revenge, of course.”

They continue walking, slowly making their way downhill. Michael turns into a spot where two adjacent buildings stand a little closer together, creating an alleyway of sorts. He raises the lantern again.

From the concrete wall, a woman’s face looks down. Her expression is heavy-lidded, alluring, but there’s a determination in her eyes that belies—or perhaps reinforces—the come-hither gaze. Her hair cascades in curls down her shoulders, and her peasant blouse is in danger of falling off her shoulder. Behind her are the bluffs, lit by the setting sun; she gestures with one arm towards the horizon. And beneath her, the legend: _I Still Believe_.

“What happened to Star?” David asks the question lazily, but there’s real interest behind it. He’d amused himself, some nights, imagining the beautiful runaway trying to settle into the quiet domestic life she’d once spurned. Imagined her clinging to Michael, the way she’d once clung to him, every bit as quietly miserable as she’d been living in the den. He’d never really known what it was that she was looking for, never much cared except when she defied him—but he knew human (and vampire) nature well enough to know that she was unlikely to find it in either place.

“I’m not sure. We had our fights, but I thought she was happy. Until, last winter...it was like we ran out of things to talk about. And the silence started to grow unbearable." A pause. "I woke up one morning and she was gone. And it was a relief.” Michael shakes his head. “Grandpa said that she told him goodbye, said thank you for everything we’d done, but who knows if that was the dementia showing its first signs.” 

“He must be getting old,” David muses to himself. Remembers Max lecturing him once: _your great advantage is your longevity. Be careful, and you can outlive even the most pernicious threats..._ “I guess everything changes.”

“The doctor says it’s Alzheimer’s. Not that it really matters.” Michael looks up at the picture again. “Sometimes I wonder if I’ll even remember her, when I get to be his age. They say you never forget your first. But she disappeared. Blew away. Maybe the memories will, too.” Then, a little quieter, almost to himself—”If I live that long.”

“I still remember my first.” David smiles. “I wouldn’t trade those memories.”

Michael looks at him, eyebrows raised.

He feels his smile turn sharp. “Well. Mostly I remember how I ended it.” 

To his surprise, an answering smile spreads over Michael’s face. “You would.”

They keep walking, downhill, towards the boardwalk. It’s closed at this time of night, the music of the rides and shouts of teenagers exchanged for a strange quiet that somehow feels just as full, shadows that hold more than the brightly-lit daytime world can offer. 

Michael stops and unlocks a doorway—”I got a gig cleaning the boardwalk at night, one summer. Didn’t pay much, but they didn’t really care who had which keys”—and they enter the gloom of the understory. He switches on his flashlight, plays the beam over the semisubterranean storefronts, the dry water fountains, the blank white walls. “Through here.”

David’s survival senses are tingling. This has all the makings of an ambush—and yet he senses nothing. He sends out his awareness as far as it will go, looking for the telltale presence of other thought-tangles—but there’s nothing. One security guard, blissfully unaware, anticipating his next smoke break. Michael, thoughts strangely opaque despite the steady burn of his emotions. Himself.

He follows.

They turn a corner into a lesser-used portion of the understory; the storefronts here are empty, some of them boarded up, some of them merely blank in their expressions. David raises his eyebrows. “If you’re worried I’m going to kill you, you’re providing an awfully convenient opportunity.”

Michael gives an edged grin. “I’m counting on your curiosity to keep me alive for the moment.”

The last painting takes up the entire end of the hallway. It’s a boy—a boy straddling the transition into a young man. His hair is dark blonde, wavy but cut short; his shoulders, turned away from the viewer, strain a little at a colorful shirt he’s outgrowing. The background, visible even before Michael turns on the lantern, is dark, looming, claustrophobic—a cacophony of dark greys and browns and blacks, the suggestion of pillars and platforms at unsteady angles, a Hades of concrete and darkness. The boy looks back over one shoulder, close-set blue eyes betraying uncertainty, horror, pleading.

_Lost in the Shadows._

In spite of himself, David _feels._ Where the others portrayed loss from a distance, this one has no such insulation—something about the boy’s obvious fear, the looming surroundings, the contrast of color and darkness all bring forth the immediacy of grief and anger. David finds himself speechless—there are so many things he could say, so many things he _wants_ to say despite their impulsivity. So many branching paths that could take these next few minutes in any number of unplanned outcomes.

Michael speaks first.

“It was supposed to be you.”

David blinks, taken by surprise. “What was?”

“You were supposed to kill him.” A chuckle, as dry and lifeless as the brick behind the painting.

“You think I was stalking your brother?” David keeps his tone lighthearted.

“Weren’t you?” Michael turns toward him, his voice hoarse. “A brother for your brothers. That's how you think.” The bitterness in his voice takes up residence in the back of David’s throat. “For two years, I barely left his side. Made sure he always had crosses and holy water on him. I think the local priest thought we were crazy.” He shakes his head at the memories. “From the moment your body disappeared, I knew it was only a matter of time until you came after him. He knew it, too. Always had me or his friends with him.” A dry-sounding swallow. “And then…”

David chooses his response carefully. Looks up at the painting. “The earthquake.” 

“Yeah.” Michael is standing stock-still, stone-still, barely breathing. “Mom won tickets to the World Series game off the radio. Sam had been having a rough time of it, with puberty on top of everything, so she thought it would cheer him up.” He shakes his head. “I think it did, a little, even though he pretended he was just doing it for her. I guess she must’ve missed the turnoff for I-280, figured she’d drive up through Oakland—” He stops.

They both know the story. Everyone in California does, by now. The unreinforced columns. The improper use of rebar. The filled land beneath, particularly susceptible to soil settling in a quake. The supports that practically exploded, sending chunks of concrete and twisted tangles of rebar raining down on the ground beneath. The upper deck that collapsed, killing dozens.

Including a young erstwhile vampire hunter and his mother.

“And you’re still here.”

It’s not what David expected to hear himself say. From Michael’s anguished expression, it’s not what he expected to hear—though certainly not something he hasn’t thought himself, many times. “I’m still here.” He turns to David, blue eyes blazing. “And so are you.”

David is a creature of careful planning. Of routines, of schemes, of painstakingly setting the pieces so that every eventuality is accounted for. So that no matter what happens, his aims will eventually be accomplished.

He forgets, sometimes, how good it feels to throw all of that out the window.

“Fortune is fickle, Michael.” He turns to his former brother with a dagger-sharp smile, with eyes brittle as knapped flint. “But even more than that, she’s spiteful. Why kill you when she could punish you instead? Torture you, take away everyone and everything you’ve ever loved? The punishment for hubris is death. But not your death.” He pauses, the screams of his brothers once more echoing in his mind. “And the damnable part is, it’s inevitable. The older you get, the more opportunities she has. Until it drives you mad.” Another pause, a gritting of his teeth, uncomfortable memories pushed back from the forefront of his mind. “No matter how you cling, whatever bulwark you build, she always wins. Until you’re ready to beg her for release, because to keep moving forward becomes unthinkable.”

A pause, a breath, as Michael absorbs this. As his eyes hold David’s, unblinking. As despair hovers between them, sends out tendrils, questing, seeking some chink in their armor to fill.

Then Michael says, “No.”

David laughs, though there’s little humor in it. “Denial, Michael? A fledgling's defense.”

“I’m not your fledgling anymore.” Something in Michael’s voice stops David’s laughter short. “I’m not immortal anymore. And I’m not stupid.” He breaks the gaze, looks up at the painting, larger than life, looming over them. “I could be bitter. I could shake my fist at the sky and yell, for taking away everyone I’ve loved. I could turn that hatred on myself, think of it as a judgement for betraying those who took me in, who wanted me for family.” David’s breath catches in his throat as Michael turns back to look at him, as those eyes blaze heat into his face. “But the truth? There’s no fairness in the world. No meaning. Which means the only thing that matters is the shelter we create. We can spend our lives beating the ground, demanding that the world become orderly and just, or we can acknowledge that anything we build is temporary, just as liable to crumble around our ears.” 

David wants to reply, to say something cutting, but the intensity of Michael’s expression forbids him, freezes him, holds him in place better than any silver chains might. “But that doesn’t mean it’s not worth building. It makes all the difference, for those it can shelter in the moment. Those we _can_ save. Our loved ones. Our family. Our town.” Michael’s eyes meet his, once more, and “determined” isn’t the right word—David would almost say “crazed”, except there’s a depth of understanding there that’s far too old for his face, that’s endlessly, eerily sane. “I’m mortal, David. I could die any moment. If fortune’s going to spite me, I’m going to spite her right back, so long as I can. I don’t have time for anything else.”

David’s not even certain how it happens. One moment, he’s holding Michael’s gaze; the next, he’s pressing Michael to the wall, sinking his fingers into that dark hair the way he’s done so many times, in dreams. Their bodies are pressed against each other, almost from toe to crown; Michael’s tongue is in his mouth, and he tastes of blood and heat and determination and _life_. David can feel the groan rumbling through his chest, coming up through his throat; he feels the hunger within him stirring, but holds it back, because Michael is _his_ , should always have been his; they’re too alike, too different, two sides of a coin— 

then Michael pushes him away. Gently, only enough that they can see each other. Holds David’s gaze. Pulls a switchblade from his pocket, and—very deliberately—slices open his tongue.

David’s on him again almost before he can pull his hand away. It’s not a deep cut, but it bleeds—oh, it bleeds, sweetness and light and rich heady wine on David’s tongue. The tangle of Michael's thoughts grows clearer, the bright-burn of his emotions nearly white-hot in their violence, anger, fear, desire, passion, guilt, need all in one toothsome package. The hunger is awake, tasting, wanting—it can smell the blood beneath the skin, the artery throbbing, offering, sweet life and sweet revenge entwined, wrapped up in the promise of one torn throat—

He pulls back, panting. Michael looks at him, darkly triumphant, as he wipes away a smear of blood from the corner of his mouth—the look of someone who’s once more faced down death, and survived—

A sound. A call. A hammering—construction? at this time of night?—their time together has grown short. “Michael—” David catches his attention, holds it almost through brute force alone as another flurry of blows descends, as the hallway dissolves into mist around them. He presses something into his hand, catches his eye one last time, urgent. “Your brothers need you. Come find us—”

Then the mist rises up and swallows them, and Michael is gone, and Santa Carla with him.

\--

“Where is he? Where is that sonuvabitch? I swear to God, I told him if I ever saw hide nor hair of him again—”

“It’s okay, Grandpa.” Michael stifles a yawn as he opens the door to his grandfather’s scowling face. “There’s nobody here. You’re just dreaming.”

“I’m not the one who’s dreaming.” His grandfather presses in, moves to the open window, the curtains fluttering in the breeze as he sticks his head out. “That smug asshole don’t think I can smell him when he’s nearby—I might be old, but some things you don’t forget no matter how long you’re around—”

Michael sighs and rubs his face. “He’s gone now,” he says, humoring the old man as he reaches his hand out, takes his grandfather’s left, leads him out and down the hall to his room. “Try and get some more sleep, okay? I’ve got work in the morning.”

With no small amount of grumbling, his grandfather gets back in bed. Michael tucks him in, shuts the door behind him, goes back and sits on his bed.

His grandfather wasn’t wrong. He had been dreaming. Something vivid, emotional—he was an artist, was painting, had painted, David had shown up, they were arguing—he’d realized something, something important—

As the last wisps of the dream dissolve, he feels his left hand unfurl.

The pewter vial sits on his palm, lead-solid, marks on his skin where the edges pressed into his flesh, where he hadn’t realized he was gripping so tightly. The heavy un-certainty of what it contains twists in his gut, pins his attention until he carefully works the stopper free, raises the vial to his nose.

Fury. Belonging. Desire. Gut-twisting transformation. A life left behind. A new life gained. A curse. A responsibility. A peace offering.

A doorway.

_Your brothers need you._

No. They’re dead. Michael knows that, the same way he knew David was still alive, these past years. 

He should throw it into the ocean. Should put David out of his mind. He knows, better than most, that eternal life is no gift, no endless party.

_Come find us—_

David’s words—the _feeling_ behind the words—had been terrifyingly sincere. No laughter, no smugness, just raw, naked need. He’d have thought them a conjuration of his subconscious, but—

The bottle sits in his hand, gleaming dully.

“I think I need to take up painting,” he says, to the empty air.

\--

“So how’d it go?”

The question is casual, interspersed with electronic _bleep_ s and _ping_ s, as the asker’s focus appears to be entirely on the battery-powered handheld game whose buttons he’s punching, in some opaque order indecipherable to David.

“He’s coming.” David stands a little straighter, nearly filling the makeshift doorway, looming over the battered sofa.

“You decided not to kill him?” The slightest shake of the dark-blond head, as if judging. “You’ve underestimated him before, don’t forget.”

David grimaces, even though he knows the other can’t see him. “I’ve watched him for years. You know as well as I do how much he needs someone to save.”

A graceless laugh-snort. “And here I thought I was getting too old for that.” A few more _ping_ s, and the game gives a series of sorrowful bleeps before powering down. “He hasn’t forgotten you, y’know. He’s not going to show up unprepared.”

“Of course not. That’s why I have you.” The grimace slowly becomes a smile. A beat. “Brother.”

The other turns, takes in David’s expression. “That’s true.” His own smile grows, a once-cherubic face hardening along more adult lines. “Say, are you hungry? Because I’d kill for a cheeseburger about now.”

David shakes his head, almost fond. “Fledglings. Insatiable.” He closes his eyes a moment, beckons to the hunger, restless beneath his ribcage. Embraces it. When he opens them again, his vision goes pleasurably gold-yellow; the edges sharpen, shadows retreating from his gaze. The world becomes simple. Easy. Predator. Prey. Food.

For a few minutes, at least, they can forget.

“All right, Sam. Let’s go hunting.”

**Author's Note:**

> Come find me on [tumblr](https://missroserose.tumblr.com/) if you also have Feelings about these two. <3


End file.
